There is a very old story. It is a myth about this land, which lay desolate before people came to live upon it. In those days, it is said that gods dwelled on the earth. The gods created water and trees and all manner of creatures on the barren land, and in the end shaped humans from clay to tend it.

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁣⁣⁠⁣⁠⁣⁣⁣⁠⁠⁣⁠⁣⁠⁣⁣⁠⁠⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁠⁠⁠⁣⁠⁣⁠⁠⁣⁠⁣⁠⁣⁠⁠⁠⁣⁣⁠⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁠⁠⁠⁣⁣⁠[We entrust our land to you. Let it flourish for all your days.]

The gods spoke to the humans, but the humans could not understand the language of the gods. The language of the gods sounded at times like the wind passing through, at times like the song of birds in flight. Humans lived for generations trying to understand that divine tongue.

The words of the gods had rhythm and melody. Only a chosen few could understand those sounds. They communed with the gods and became the center of human society, gathering people together and founding a kingdom. Humans named their kingdom after the first person to commune with the gods, and that is the Kingdom of Seydel as it stands today.

After humans built their civilization, the gods returned to their own world, but their language remained on the earth. Humans gave that language the name of music and used it to seek wisdom from the gods.

Once every ten years. The gods would answer a single question. In the very beginning, only royalty could understand music, but as time passed, more and more people came to grasp it. Those who understood music all sought the wisdom of the gods, but only one question could be asked.

And so the royal house of Seydel decided to hold a music festival once every ten years and give the one chosen by the greatest number of people the opportunity to seek the wisdom of the gods. That was how the Royal Music Festival, Jubilion, came to be.

‘Win the Jubilion, Miss Danyu.’

That was what Astaire had said in the storeroom on the day the dust fell like snow. Hearing his words, I remembered for the first time that the Jubilion was to be held that spring.

To win the Jubilion. The moment I grasped what those words meant, I was horrified.

The Jubilion was a competition where every notable musician in the kingdom gathered to vie against one another. The names of past winners were the history of the kingdom’s music in themselves, and a novice like me had no place in such a setting.

And yet Astaire had told me to win the Jubilion. It was absurd. Only two months remained until the Jubilion. For someone who had made mistake after mistake at a university entrance examination, two months was far too short a time to draw near to the language of the gods.

Above all else, there was Sio Lieselotte. Sio had been unable to participate in the previous festival because he had not yet met the Jubilion’s age requirement, which allowed only adults of mature body and mind. But starting this year, he would be competing.

I had only just turned nineteen that year and barely met the age requirement myself, so I was fully eligible, but if Sio Lieselotte was competing, winning was beyond imagining. Every musician in the kingdom would be thinking the same thing.

I remembered the first music I had ever heard in my life, the music Sio had shown me. A succession of notes that broke free of the score and moved with abandon, driving into my ears like a cry. It was a sound unlike any other. Something no one could imitate and no one could surpass, singular in all the world. Sio was a man who possessed that.

Even so, Astaire was certain that Sio would not win the Jubilion. I asked why, but Astaire gave no answer. The reason Sio would not win the Jubilion. That was the story Astaire had called the one I didn’t know.

‘If you want to know why, win the Jubilion. But if Miss Danyu wants to win, the person you’ll have to surpass won’t be Sio. It will be me, Astaire Werner.’

I opened my eyes with Astaire’s last words still in my mind. The sunlight had already brightened and stung my eyes, and every time I shifted, the sheet music scattered carelessly around me rustled. I seemed to have fallen asleep on the sofa while choosing a piece to perform at the Jubilion. I reached out and gathered the pages, and a whole bundle of paper came into my hands.

“So these are the pieces you were considering.”

Before I could properly look through them, the sheet music slipped from my hands. I startled awake and opened my drowsy eyes wide, and Astaire was standing before me, looking through the pages. I had just been dreaming about the day I spoke with him, so I couldn’t easily tell whether the Astaire in front of me was real or a remnant of the dream.

“Are you the real Astaire?”

“Is there a false one?”

Astaire let out a quiet laugh at the dazed question.

“Lady Astrid sent word. She said Miss Danyu hasn’t been sleeping properly for days, too caught up in worrying over something music-related, and asked if I could offer some advice.”

It wasn’t entirely because of music-related worries, but it was true that various thoughts had been circling my head and I hadn’t been able to sleep properly for days. The fact that I had fallen dead asleep on the sofa, which would normally have been too uncomfortable to sit on for long, was surely the result of those days of lost sleep.

“You’re offering advice to your opponent in a wager? It seems you have no intention of winning at all.”

At the familiar, unhurried voice, the moment I recognized the Astaire before me as real, the thought of how haggard I must look came to me. Knowing it was pointless, I wiped my face roughly with my sleeve anyway, while Astaire’s gaze remained on the sheet music he had taken from my hands.

“I want to win the Jubilion far more than Miss Danyu thinks. I simply want a fair contest. I am a professor in name, after all. Shouldn’t a teacher show some consideration?”

A soft rustling sound came each time Astaire turned a page. There was something about that ordinary sound that put me at ease, and I slowly closed my eyes.

The right kind of noise was almost music. I took the sounds tickling my ears and loosely set notes to them, turning them over in my mouth. E, G, F. The sounds that had been flowing along at leisure disappeared with the sudden stop of the rustling. I opened my eyes and looked at Astaire, and he had already picked out one sheet of music from among the stack.

“Play this piece.”

The score Astaire held out was dense with the dark mood of a minor key and an arrangement of passionate notes. The eighth sonata. A composition by Seydel, the first musician.

It was not particularly well known compared to the other sonatas Seydel had composed during his lifetime, but some musicians counted this eighth sonata as the greatest masterpiece of Seydel’s life. The inner voice of emotions churning beneath the surface. That was how the renowned critic Ludwig had described the eighth sonata.

“It’s a piece without even a title. The mood shifts depending on how it’s interpreted, so it should suit Miss Danyu, who has a gift for feeling. And above all, the best thing about it is that it’s a piece Sio never taught you.”

“How did you know Sio never taught me this piece?”

“Sio doesn’t like Seydel. I didn’t think he would have bothered to teach it.”

I asked in surprise, and Astaire shrugged with his usual ease.

It was true, just as Astaire said. Sio disliked Seydel and had never once taught me any of his compositions. When Sio was very young he had occasionally played Seydel’s pieces, but as he grew older he distanced himself from them to the point of not even looking at the scores by choice. On the days when a concert commission left him no choice but to perform Seydel, he would fall into a low mood a full week beforehand. Sio disliked Seydel’s music that deeply, so it was only natural that Astaire, who had watched him from close by, had come to know this as well.

Satisfied with Astaire’s reasoning, I turned my gaze back to the score. Allegro maestoso. I moved my hand through the air, following the notes that moved quickly and grandly. A hum came out on its own, following the fingers tapping lightly at nothing.

“All that time teaching you to read sheet music has paid off.”

Astaire had been watching quietly and spoke in a voice touched with amusement. I couldn’t tell whether it was a compliment to me or a compliment to himself, but it was certainly true that I had grown more comfortable with sheet music than before he began teaching me. I kept moving my hand through the air and looked at him.

“I really have improved a lot. I’ve never had such a clear sense of a piece just from looking at the score. It’s all thanks to you, Astaire.”

“With that in mind, I’d like to make another request. I hope you’ll keep to it until the Jubilion.”

A request right on the heels of receiving thanks. There was no way to refuse. He really was remarkably skilled at asking for things.

“What kind of request?”

The thought made a laugh slip out, but in contrast to my light response, Astaire was watching me with a rather serious expression. The smile faded from my face in turn. I lowered the hand that had been moving through the air and looked at him calmly, and he opened his mouth.

“You’re welcome to listen to any other piece you like. But until the Jubilion, you are not to listen to this piece. No matter whose performance it is, don’t listen to it.”

His voice held a firmness I hadn’t heard from him before. I wanted to ask why, but before I could, Astaire repeated the request with such emphasis that I could only nod in a daze.

“Good girl.”

It had been an answer given without thinking, but it seemed to be enough for Astaire. A smile bloomed quickly on his face, which had been so serious a moment before.

“What, are you going to give a good girl a reward?”

He had just said he never thought of me as a child, and now he was treating me like one outright. I grumbled at Astaire’s attitude, and he responded with unexpected seriousness.

“You’re right. I should give you something.”